View full sizeThomas Ondrey l The Plain DealerBacked by an array of faith leaders, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Steven Dettlebach holds a press conference to announce a united stand against hate crimes.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Religious leaders and law enforcement officials stood together Wednesday and decried the actions of a 23-year-old Conneaut man who set fire to a predominantly black church.

U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach convened the gathering at the federal courthouse in Cleveland just hours after Ronald Pudder was sentenced in Akron to four years and three months in prison.

Pudder, who is white, pleaded guilty in November to damaging the First Azusa Apostolic Faith Church of God after a night of drinking and snorting Percocet. The charge carried a hate crime designation that probably added about 18 months to the sentence, Pudder's attorney Edward Bryan estimated.

Dettelbach, who was flanked by rabbis, ministers and representatives of the local Muslim community, said that while it was a church that was set on fire in May, tomorrow it could be a synagogue or a mosque.

The Rev. C. Jay Matthews, president of the United Pastors in Mission, stepped forward and quoted Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Matthews called hate a cancer.

Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk of the Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood, said neither Judaism, Islam or Christianity provides a refuge for hateful crimes. Shehadeh Abdelkarim, president of the Islamic Center of Cleveland in Parma, nodded in agreement.

The fire at the church helped galvanize the creation of a multi-faith organization called United Against Hate. The nearly two dozen representatives who joined Dettelbach Wednesday afternoon have all signed on to the organization.

Pudder, a laborer and father of two children, had faced a federal judge hours earlier at the federal courthouse in Summit County. The U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted the case because it involved a civil rights violation.

He initially denied torching the church, but later admitted to the crime after surveillance photos showed him buying gas shortly before the early-morning fire. Police had seen Pudder driving past the church shortly after the fire. They stopped him on an unrelated matter. He wasn't wearing a shirt and his car smelled of gas.

Pudder also admitted that he sent a text to a friend, saying he was going to burn down a church and that he was going to kill a black person, only he used a derogatory term for black person. He later told another friend that he had burned a church.

Pudder's actions before and after the crime lead investigators to believe it was racially motivated.

Pudder's attorney Edward Bryan argued that his client did not intend to destroy the church, just damage it. Bryan also said his client's disturbing actions were fueled by drugs and alcohol. The church sustained about $19,000 in damage, mostly to the front entrance.

Bryan suggested one of Pudder's friends -- a white supremacist -- may have planted the seed in Pudder's mind that lead to his actions.

A forensic psychologist who evaluated Pudder concluded that he "does not present as overtly racist, nor does he have many of the qualities found in the literature of hate crime perpetrators," according to a report filed with the court.

But U.S. District Judge John Adams concluded that Pudder has racist tendencies and that he was trying to destroy the church when he poured gasoline on the front and side doors.

Adams asked Pudder in court if he had anything to say before he was sentenced. Pudder apologized then broke down sobbing. Adams ordered Pudder's arm shackles removed so he good dab his eyes.

The judge then prodded Pudder to explain his actions, to offer anything from his past that might explain why he set fire to the church.

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